Ole Edvart Rølvaag, highly
conscious of his old-world inheritance, possessed the dual orientation
which seems necessary for objectivity and perspective in evaluating
a culture; yet in his social criticism, as in his economic and
political criticisms, he failed to achieve the remarkable perspicacity
of an Alexis de Tocqueville, a Lord Bryce, or a Thorstein Veblen.
Perhaps this failure may be accounted for by the limited nature
of his exposure to the mainstream of American society. Nevertheless,
Rølvaag, with some display of critical acumen, probed
deeply into American domestic institutions, examining the role
of women in our society, evaluating American education, and
assessing our religious attitudes. His resistance to the "Americanizing"
process and his conviction that the unique cultural values of
the Norwegian immigrants should be conserved determined the
character and tone of his social criticism.

In the fictionalized account of his earliest experiences
in South Dakota as a farm hand and student, recorded in Amerika-breve,
Rølvaag noted that women were well treated in America—perhaps
too well treated. Per Smevik, the fictitious writer of these
letters, is rather taken aback that men in America milked
cows and did other barnyard chores normally done by their
wives and daughters on a Norwegian farm. These early observations
were not unusual. Most [113] foreign observers throughout
the nineteenth century noted the unique status of women in
America. As Francis Grund expressed it: "There is one
particular sentiment pervading all classes of Americans, which,
though something similar exists in England, is in no other
country carried to the same extent, or productive of the same
consequences. I mean the universal respect for women, and
the protection offered them, to whatever order of society
they may belong." {1} This author saw the domestic virtue
of the Americans as the principal source of all their other
qualities, and their belief in it as something reinforced
by powerful moral and religious sanctions. In Rølvaag,
the idea was quite clearly derived from his orthodox religious
position.

The Norwegian immigrant communities in South Dakota and Minnesota,
which formed the vantage point of Rølvaag’s observations
of American society, had accepted the so-called "Victorian"
codes. It was the initial absence of the restraints of family
and tradition on the frontier that had led to the establishment
of stricter rules of moral discipline than the immigrants
had known in the Old World. According to Marcus L. Hansen,
this "Puritanism" was a typical outgrowth of the
acculturation experience of the immigrants. {2} The historian
points out an interesting parallel from New England history,
noting that John Winthrop had observed that crime and disorder
began to appear very early among the Massachusetts Bay settlers.
But the ministers and the magistrates conferred, and as a
result a stricter code was introduced. "The next morning
they delivered their several reasons, which all sorted to
this conclusion, that strict discipline both in criminal offenses
and in marital affairs, was more needful in plantations than
in a settled state, as tending to the honor and safety of
the gospel." {3} [114]

In Peder Victorious, Oline Tuftan, a young girl, kills her
illegitimate child and is brought to a strict accounting for
her act before a congregational meeting. Rølvaag implies
that the immigrant community was under a stricter observance
of the moral code than had been the case in the Old World:
"As his [Peder’s] mother and he walked along over to
the wagon they passed a group of men who stood talking. One
of them was saying in low tones: ‘A fellow can’t fool with
the girls over here — in the old country a brat or two didn’t
make much difference!’ Laughing, another added: ‘Well, you’ve
got to be smarter about it here, you see.’ . . . At that the
whole group guffawed. His mother took him by the arm and dragged
him hurriedly away. . . . What did it all mean?" {4}

Rølvaag accepted these stricter attitudes uncritically
during his early period, and when they were challenged in
the years following World War I, he lamented the breakdown
of respect for things formerly counted holy and the widespread
undermining of the home. In a speech delivered in Iowa in
1921, he attributed this lapse in morals to the hysteria of
wartime, when law and tradition are denied. He was embittered
by the attacks of the superpatriots upon the immigrant groups
in America, and on another occasion he asserted, "There
is no true patriotism unless it is built upon a love of home
and fireside." {5}

At the center of the home is mother. Rølvaag was very
devoted to his own mother, and he expressed his feelings upon
a number of occasions, especially in his Diary. But the "mother"
concept in Rølvaag seems to reach out to include "mother
tongue," "mother country," and the whole maternal
aspect of a national culture. In the character of Beret, he
has embodied both the narrower and the broader aspects of
motherhood. Her character is traced in detail from [115] her
pregnancy, while on the way to South Dakota, to the deathbed
scene in Their Fathers’ God, where she disposes of the estate
of Per Hansa with motherly concern and equity to each child.
After Per Hansa’s death, her maternal role had expanded to
include paternal aspects also. She had become known as the
best farmer in the settlement, bringing Per Hansa’s dreams
to fulfillment. At a critical congregational meeting, she
assumed the male prerogative of speaking in the church, and,
much to the chagrin of her sons, spoke her mind to a bickering
congregation. As a wife she had shown weakness; as a mother
she continually reflected strength and endurance. Gudrun Hovde
Gvaale has applied Goethe’s phrase, "das ewig weibliche,"
to the description of Beret, suggesting that security for
this type of person is dependent upon "a mystical sense
of relationship to old places and familiar landmarks."
{6}

But Beret was also maternal in the broader sense of the word.
She represented the mother tongue, so much so that Peder’s
life was linguistically and emotionally compartmentalized
in his relationship to her. According to Rølvaag, it
was the mother who determined how long the Norwegian language
would live in America. It was she who held the key which could
open the door of cultural heritage for the next generation.
Beret stood for the values of the old ways in the midst of
a world of rapid changes; she retained her integrity as a
person and remained a force to be reckoned with in her family
and in her community.

In what had been her weakest hour, in the depths of her despair,
the one source of strength was her old immigrant chest, a
symbol of cultural continuity. At that time she had thought
of it as a place of refuge, and, when death seemed imminent,
she had even requested that she be buried in it. Later, the
chest became hallowed as an "ark of covenant" when
the pioneer pastor used it as an altar for the first [116]
communion service in the settlement. Like an umbilical cord,
the chest provided a vital link for Beret in the transplanting
of culture.

In 1929, Samuel Eliot Morison, the eminent historian, wrote
to Rølvaag, suggesting an interesting parallel between
Beret and Ann Bradstreet: "As I have often told you,
Beret is a great figure because she typified the woman emigrant
of every race. Only the other day in the writings of Ann Bradstreet
— the first American poetess — who came over to Massachusetts
Bay about 1630, I found the following statement: ‘I found
new manners at which my heart rose. But after I was convinced
it was the way of God, I submitted to it.’ Poor Beret was
less fortunate than Ann, for she could hardly reconcile American
ways to the way of God. If life in the New World was difficult
for the puritan women who came out of revulsion for the old,
how much more so it must have been for the immigrant women
of later races, who found nothing — not even for many years
economic well-being — to compensate them for the things that
they had lost." {7}

Rølvaag’s class notes for his Ibsen lectures provide
the richest source of information on his attitudes toward
women. He observed that the early Ibsen recognized two classes
of women: the self-sacrificing person, such as Agnes in Brand;
and the one who leads man on to his ruin (or victory). The
latter type he called "Valkyrie-like," and he suggested
that Gerd in Brand was such a character. But when Ibsen was
through with Romanticism, his women became harder to classify
because he began to delineate individuals, not types. Ibsen’s
modern women have a quality of sameness; they are all stunted
in development and have not realized themselves. Rølvaag
believed that the dramatist was indicting modern society for
hampering their development: "Ibsen’s whole social attitude
presupposes a free development of the [117] individual. The
greatest possible self-realization is the kernel of his philosophy
as far as he has a philosophy. . . . Ibsen’s idea of the free
marriage does not do away with whatever social convention
the world accepts as a symbol of the marriage bond; he simply
believes that there are those living in wedlock who have never
been joined spiritually; that there are some marriages which
are immoral, existing simply because the marriage bond holds
them." {8}

In the notes on A Doll’s House, Rølvaag asserts that
he had never heard of divorce until he came to America — "I
doubt very much that I knew the term — skilsmisse." In
the same context, he expresses doubt as to whether women would
ever be able to compete successfully with men. He did not
think that they would improve our political life, although
they might cause certain reform legislation to be passed.
On the whole, however, their influence in politics might be
negative rather than positive. He concluded this particular
discussion by suggesting that the whole feminist struggle
for liberation rested upon a misconception on the part of
women.

In a special lecture entitled "Woman in History,"
Rølvaag asked how the liberation of women was going
to affect society. The whole idea fails to account for the
fundamental differences between men and women. Rølvaag
suggested that women were not endowed with creative genius
to the extent of men, and he cited as evidence of his contention
the overwhelming masculine leadership in the creative arts.
The feminist revolt dates from the nineteenth century, and
to Rølvaag the movement is only proof of woman’s capacity
for endurance — "She is more ‘long-suffering." Man
destroys, but it is woman who repairs; man wounds, and it
is Woman who heals: "Hence it seems to me that woman
has struck out in the wrong direction in her quest for freedom
and equality. She isn’t going where the finger of God points.
[118] When I read history I seem to hear God’s voice speaking
so plainly— to man: ‘Go and make the home!’ To woman: ‘Go
and queen the home!’ " {9}

In an Ibsen lecture entitled "Closing Remarks,"
Rølvaag notes that the problem of self-realization
versus self-surrender had special attraction for Ibsen — the
problem of a woman’s life when she marries. Rølvaag
suggests the solution to the problem: "When a woman marries
she becomes someone else. She changes her name; she changes
her home; she changes her occupation; and her new name, her
new home, and her new occupation, are determined by her husband
and her children. Hence marriage, regarded from the woman’s
point of view, is the problem of society, focused and epitomized
— the problem of self-realization in and through self-surrender.
The same problem meets us all, men and women, in all the relations
of life; but in none is it so obvious and so tangible as it
is here." {10}

Rølvaag believed that it was a woman friend who gave
him ideas on the essential differences between man and woman.
"It is dangerous to be a woman," she had told him;
"a woman must belong —body, soul, heart, and mind."
A man may compartmentalize his life, but a woman must give
herself up. "The Lord doesn’t issue return tickets to
women. For women there is only departure; there is no return."
{11}

While Rølvaag’s basic attitude toward women and their
rights was very conservative, highly colored by his religious
background and convictions, he did not believe in a false
idealization. In his lecture, "Books and Folks,"
delivered after he had achieved some national recognition
as a writer, he attacks the idea that woman as the "weaker
vessel" must be regarded as holy and must be shielded
from the realities [119] of life. The result of this attitude,
he asserts, has been a taboo in thought and speech "as
vicious as it is false." {12}

Some of the more prudish readers of Rølvaag’s books
attacked him for his use of the sexual theme. Actually, his
treatment of sex was very restrained, and by comparison with
some of the literature being produced in the same era, almost
negligible in quantity. But he believed that as the sex urge
was present in normal healthy people, it should be treated
in a very natural way in literature. He was equally opposed
to the taboo which the genteel tradition had enforced upon
American literature, and to the newer treatment of sex which
he regarded as "lascivious."

By the time Rølvaag came to America, the issue of
public versus parochial education in the Norwegian communities
had long been settled, at least on the elementary level. According
to Theodore C. Blegen, the public school was quietly accepted
by the average Norwegian American in spite of the dissatisfaction
of church leaders with a system that omitted religious instruction.
The democratic ideal of an education made available to all
at public expense appealed to the immigrant as the only practical
solution to the problem. {13}

In most immigrant communities, religion and the Norwegian
language were taught to children in vacation sessions under
the direct sponsorship of the local Lutheran congregation;
often, however, they made use of the local public school facilities.
Students from church academies and colleges, as well as young
men from theological seminaries, were often employed as "parochial
teachers" for the summer term. While he was a student,
Rølvaag spent several summers as such a teacher in
Nebraska and North Dakota. His experiences at that time were
put into fictional form in Amerika-breve. He discovered that
it was no easy task to [120] instruct fifty lively youngsters
in their Catechism and Bible history; yet he found the work
interesting as well as demanding in the extreme.

In his early novel, Paa glemte veie (On Forgotten Paths),
Rølvaag portrays the young seminarian, Harry Haugland,
in an unfavorable light. Haugland was anxious to organize
and conduct young people’s meetings devoted to the discussion
of "social service," but he failed to appreciate
the opportunity he had as a cultural agent in his work as
a teacher. With his motto, "The greatest good for the
greatest number," he believed that young Norwegian Americans
should learn to express themselves fluently in English. Through
the eyes of Mabel, the heroine of the story, the author is
able to convey to the reader the emptiness and foolishness
of the young instructor.

Rølvaag’s objection to the public school was not particularly
that it omitted religious instruction, but that it hastened
the Americanization of the children of immigrants by deliberately
ignoring, in the process of instruction, all references to
their specific cultural heritage. In Omkring fædrearven,
he voices a protest against the lack of freedom in education
in America. The school, in its zeal to educate for democracy,
was trying to force every child into the same mold — the one-talent
child as well as the child with five talents.

In Peder Victorious he satirizes the role of the public school
teacher: "The beat of her kind schoolma’am heart quickened
as she pored over her notes; the flush in her cheeks deepened.
All that which was heterogeneous and foreign must here be
moulded together so as to make one heart and one mind, seeing
only the highest and wanting only the best. These immigrant
children were the clay, she the potter, her country’s history
the pattern after which she must fashion them. Miss Mahon,
Miss Clarabelle Mahon, to be exact, derived inspiration from
that history in very much [121] the same manner as the pious-minded
draws sustenance from the sacred stories of the Bible."
{14}

Miss Mahon, for all her lofty idealism, had her difficulties
in trying to shape the minds of her young pupils. Americanism
was to her a kind of religion, and, as Denis Brogan has noted
more recently, the exercise of this faith carried with it
the ritualistic trappings of religious piety. {15} But when
she tries to pass off as gospel truth the story of George
Washington and the cherry tree, young Charlie Doheny rebels
and raises doubts in Peder’s mind as well. The result of this
incident was the slightly irreverent drawing of Washington
that Miss Mahon found on her desk the morning after the political
meeting at the schoolhouse. At the sight of the picture, Miss
Mahon’s sentimental idealism came crashing to the ground.

Beret was unhappy over the fact that Peder had to go to school
with the Irish children, and, after a rather unpleasant encounter
with Miss Mahon, she decided to transfer her son to the Tallaksen
School, where he would be with Norwegian children: "A
terrible misfortune that they should have come to belong to
the school district west of the creek. . . How could the authorities
act so senselessly? . . . Here they had mixed people as though
they were of no more consequence than the swill they slopped
together for their pigs. . . . No one need tell her that such
government was instituted by God. . . . Oh no — it was man
who ruled here. The Lord did not have much to say!" {16}

In the Tallaksen School, Peder discovered that at the top
of the blackboard were written the words, "This is an
American school; in work and play alike we speak English only!"
On Peder’s desk was a geography book with many illustrations.
One picture was of a man armed only with a sheath knife, in
mortal combat with a large bear: "The title of the [122]
paragraph accompanying the picture was the single word: Norway.
Under the picture someone had written in pencil: ‘A Norskie.’
Slowly and deliberately Peder read the short paragraph about
the land of his ancestors. Throughout the whole process of
his education in the public school, this was the only information
he ever got about the land from which his people had come."
{17} Is it any wonder that Peder’s response to his immigrant
identity and background was, "When I am grown up I am
going to go so far away that I’ll never hear the word Norwegian
again!"?

Rølvaag’s own educational experience in America was
limited entirely to institutions established and maintained
by Norwegian Lutherans. Although he spent his life in educational
work, his points of contact with major American universities
were very limited. His studies, after he had earned his B.A.
degree at St. Olaf College, were carried on, in 1905-1906,
at the Royal Frederik University in Christiania.

The Norwegian Americans were particularly active in establishing
and maintaining their own secondary and higher schools. One
English-speaking Lutheran church leader referred to their
love of education in glowing terms: "And how they love
education. How they will plan and how ready they are to sacrifice
and to suffer that their children may have an education. I
actually saw large families living in sod shacks on the open
prairie sending a boy or girl to Concordia College [Moorhead,
Minnesota]. Am sorry to say that I have not seen anything
like this among the Germans." {18}

Why did the Norwegians invest so heavily in education? There
can be no doubt that the primary motive was to insure a continuing
leadership of pastors and teachers within the church. The
first schools were heavily oriented in the direction of pre-theological
studies and emphasized the [123] classical languages and literature
for that purpose. But as time went on, this outlook on education
was challenged by a broader view. The issue was sharpened
in the Augsburg-St. Olaf controversy of the 1890’s. The founders
of St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, had sought to
establish an institution with a much more inclusive curriculum
than the narrow pre-theological course of study. It provided
a general Christian education for laymen as well as for future
pastors, and it opened the doors of higher education to young
women as well as to young men. The advocates of the narrower
view, finding a spokesman in Professor Georg Sverdrup of Augsburg
Seminary, Minneapolis, labeled the education at St. Olaf College
as "humanistic" and "secular." {19}

As Gudrun Hovde Gvaale has pointed out, a parallel struggle
in education was going on in Norway during the second half
of the nineteenth century, one that may have had some bearing
upon the educational controversies among Norwegian Americans.
The theological faculty at the University of Christiania was
dominated during most of that period by Professor Gisle Johnson.
He was the leader of the pietistic movement in Norway, and
the "Johnson theology" allied itself with various
lay religious movements in opposition to the teachings of
Bishop N. F. S. Grundtvig of Denmark and his folk high school
movement. In Norway, this development in education was carried
on under the leadership of Christopher Bruun. The folk high
schools stressed the study of Norwegian literature and history,
whereas the older "Christiania education" emphasized
the study of ancient languages and German exegetical commentaries
in a spirit of dry formalism. Thus the new movement opposed
both the old classicism and the narrow pietism which Gisle
[124] Johnson stood for. The Johnsonians accused Bruun and
his associates of "secularism" and "humanism."
Bruun’s own position, as outlined in his Folkelige grundtanker
(1878), was called "Christian humanism." He attacked
the pietists for their sharp line of distinction between the
religious and the secular. {20}

Many, if not most, of the early Norwegian clergymen in America
had come under the influence of Gisle Johnson, or had been
taught by professors who had been directly under his influence,
and consequently were in sympathy with his particular brand
of orthodox piety. It is, therefore, not surprising that the
educational institutions established by the Norwegians in
America had difficulty in achieving a liberal and humanistic
orientation. But even in those institutions, there were men
who had been in touch with the more recent liberal stirrings
of thought in Norway. One of these men was Professor J. S.
Nordgaard, Rølvaag’s instructor in Norwegian literature
at Augustana Academy in Canton, South Dakota. Nordgaard, who
had been in Christiania for a year of postgraduate work, interpreted
Norwegian culture in a manner very similar to that of the
folk high school movement. Furthermore, he came from Gausdal,
and it was at Gausdal that Christopher Bruun had founded one
of the model folk schools.

In his commencement oration at Augustana Academy in 1901
— "Sand dannelse paa national grund" (True Culture
on a National Basis) — Rølvaag clearly gave evidence
of the influence of the folk high school point of view. He
laid down three conditions necessary for a true culture: mother
tongue, national characteristics, and the faith of the forefathers.
When these are lost, he contended, all sense of nationality
is lost, and one becomes a kind of international vagrant,
belonging nowhere. From this oration, it can be seen that
at an early date the essential features of Rølvaag’s
program of cultural conservation were already clear in his
mind. [125]

From his matriculation in 1901 until his death in 1931, Rølvaag
was closely identified with St. Olaf College. He was perhaps
too closely associated with his college — and with its peculiar
mission — to develop significantly as a critic of higher education
in its broader aspects. In spite of a perennially low salary
and heavy teaching loads, he was a devoted supporter of the
institution. The extent of his loyalty can be measured by
the fact that, during a year of absence in 1924-1925, he took
precious time from the writing of Giants in the Earth to assist
St. Olaf in a fund-raising drive following the loss of the
college chapel by fire. He highly admired two of the presidents
under whom he served: J. N. Kildahl and L. W. Boe. He had
looked to Kildahl as a kind of spiritual father, and his friendship
with Boe was very close, in spite of the fact that the two
men disagreed on several important issues. When narrow-minded
critics from the church constituency attacked Rølvaag
for writing "grisliteratur" — literally, pig-literature
— Dr. Boe was Rølvaag’s staunchest defender. The two
men carried on a confidential correspondence for many years,
and exchanged many ideas on the policies and goals of higher
education, particularly as these related to St. Olaf. Typical
of this exchange is the following excerpt from a letter written
by Rølvaag in the late 1920’s: "The more I see
and hear of this modern world, the greater becomes my apprehension
for all of our church colleges. Will any of them become a
real ‘mother of men’? I don’t mean of mutts, I mean men! St.
Olaf has perhaps the best chance provided our would-be-great
men will leave her alone." {21}

Rølvaag’s capacities as a teacher were assessed in
an article written shortly after his death in 1931 by one
of his former students: "The thoughts drift back to hours
spent in his classroom. There the Ibsen course was his favorite:
it [126] supplied the stuff necessary for debates and dissertations
on life in all its ramifications. Once the discussion grew
warm and students were thinking, he would stand by, his eyes
sparkling; now and then he would toss new fuel into the flames.
The grim gospel of one great realist thus interpreted and
magnified for us by another made for distressed souls and
disturbed minds. New perspectives, shattered illusions. Often
the inevitable gloom that settled over the class at such sessions
would hang over us for hours or even days afterwards. But
that was as it should be, and Mr. Rølvaag’s Ibsen class
was to most of us bounteous compensation for the dull routine
of the average classroom." {22}

In his lecture "Books and Folks," Rølvaag
complained that more women than men study literature. The
male student was much too taken up with the American mania
for material success; consequently, he wanted the kind of
education that would insure him that kind of success. The
student was not to blame; it was an environment of distorted
human values that was at work, and the product of this kind
of education was a man with a narrow, provincial, materialistic
outlook — a kind of George Babbitt. Rølvaag felt that
it was the study of great literature which opened up "the
wonderland of the human heart." He also complained of
students who merely set out to earn credits, and of those
who neglected their courses in favor of extracurricular activities
which might insure success in practical life.

Rølvaag’s diary, begun before he left Norway, shows
the influence of the devotional language of Lutheran piety,
as the following excerpt from the entry of August 1, 1896,
illustrates: "Strange it is indeed how consuming this
longing for a better existence can be. I hope that God in
His great mercy will count me as one of His children for the
sake of Jesus Christ. Then, yes, then I shall obtain the true
[127] happiness. Then too shall my yearning be satisfied.
God grant that I soon may be able to repent of my sins."
{23}

The intellectual horizon of Rølvaag’s home in Norway
bad not been wide. His father, Peder Rølvaag, was somewhat
autocratic and narrow-minded, particularly on religious subjects,
holding firmly to the accepted brand of Lutheran orthodoxy.
As Rølvaag himself later noted, the Norwegians tended
to be individualistic in their religion; it was one’s personal
relationship with God that mattered above all else. The social
or communal aspects of the Christian faith were stressed hardly
at all. The most powerful force acting upon this Norwegian
religious attitude had been the great lay preacher, Hans Nielsen
Hauge (1771-1824), with his uncompromising message of repentance
and conversion.

Rølvaag’s initial reactions to the religious conditions
among the Norwegians in America can be found in his Amerika-breve.
Writing to his brother in Norway, Per Smevik (a thin fictional
disguise for Rølvaag himself) confesses that there
was much about church life in the immigrant communities that
still puzzled him; but one thing was certain — the church
was the single institution binding immigrants together in
a meaningful association. Out of their meager resources, they
had erected and supported churches because they understood
the compelling need for their religion. But the free-church
principle had its weaknesses as well. The most serious problem
was that a factional spirit had entered into their life, as
it had, for example, in the community in which Smevik had
served some years before as a parochial teacher, at a time
when the congregation had been divided into two warring factions.
As a result of this split, there were now two congregations
in bitter competition with one another. The controversy had
set brother against brother and even husband against wife
in a most unchristian fashion.

In Norway, the established state church had held together
[128] the religious factions which otherwise might have set
themselves up in rival sects. But, as the church historian,
J. Magnus Rohne, has pointed out with reference to an earlier
period among the Norwegians in America, the situation was
different: "In America there was no government force
that could act as surgeon’s stitches; once the wound was broken
open it began to fester, and it could only heal by growth
from the bottom and out. The immigrant to America, hot with
issues that were being fought out when he emigrated, and receiving
no new impulses from the homeland, stopped short at those
issues which to him became fixed until submerged by other
issues in his own American community." {24}

To the religious differences which the immigrants had imported
from Norway was added in the late 1880’s the "Missourian"
controversy over predestination, which left many Norwegian-American
communities scarred with bitterness and hatred for years.
{25} It was undoubtedly this conflict which had split the
congregation in the community noted above by Per Smevik in
Amerika-breve.

While still a student at Augustana Academy, Rølvaag
underwent a period of emotional crises which, according to
his diary, included both a disappointing love affair and a
religious experience. During his senior year at the academy,
the young lady broke off the relationship, and Rølvaag
emerged from the episode with a firmer sense of his mission
in life. He expressed his new outlook in the commencement
oration in 1901: "True Culture on a National Basis."

During his college years, he thought seriously of entering
the Lutheran ministry. When he finally chose to become a teacher,
it was with the same sense of a divine calling that a sensitively
religious person might feel for the ministry. His idealism
embraced both religious and cultural elements, and [129] the
two were so intertwined that they could not be separated.
His religious beliefs were so orthodox that, during his first
years of teaching at St. Olaf, he conducted classes in religion,
as well as in such other subjects as Greek and Norwegian.

His novel Paa glemte veie appeared in 1914; it was issued
by Augsburg Publishing House, an official agency of the United
Norwegian Lutheran Church. Rølvaag used the pseudonym
Paal Mørck, but it was rather well known that the author
was a professor at St. Olaf College. The plot and characters
of the novel illustrate the manner in which religious and
cultural elements were combined in Rølvaag’s thinking
during the early period of his authorship. Chris Larsen, the
richest farmer in his settlement, has atrophied both religiously
and culturally because of his relentless pursuit of material
wealth. He is described as a "man without a soul."
His daughter, Mabel, had inherited from her dead mother a
spiritual sensitivity. With singleness of purpose, she devotes
her life to her father’s conversion. On his deathbed, after
spending several years as a helpless cripple, Chris Larsen
finally experiences an eleventh-hour conversion.

As Gudrun Hovde Gvaale has noted, the denouement of the story
is its weakest point, for a "miracle" is necessary
to effect Larsen’s conversion. {26} Jorgenson and Solum have
also commented upon the artistic failure of the "conversion"
theme: "To include religious behavior and doctrinal motivation
in the account of human life is one thing; it is done and
must be done in all great art. But to make the salvation of
a soul the point toward which the entire rising action tends
is an artistic mistake, because the act of salvation is in
Christian doctrine nothing less than a miracle, and one cannot
make a psychological sequence issue in a miracle any more
than a person’s good deeds will earn him his salvation. Rølvaag
saw his mistake in later years; he never again undertook to
deal with religion in this manner." {27} [130]

The cultural issue is definitely subordinate to religious
and ethical concerns in Paa glemte veie. Yet the story is
also a grim commentary upon the shallow, empty lives of many
Norwegian Americans of the second generation. Rapid Americanization
had left them without adequate cultural resources. In the
novel, Rølvaag singles out the young theological student,
Harry Haugland, for his scathing satire. Haugland embodies
just about all of the faults and shortcomings that the author
had observed in his countrymen, who had turned their backs
on their rightful heritage and had chosen instead a vapid
imitation of the superficial aspects of Americanism. Haugland’s
concept of "social service" is pathetic and inadequate
in contrast to the life of duty to which Mabel had devoted
herself.

On May 18, 1920, Rølvaag’s small son, Paul Gunnar,
was accidentally drowned in a neighbor’s well, and the sudden
shock of the boy’s death had a profound influence upon Rølvaag’s
religious convictions: "I think it changed my entire
view of life. Prior to this tragedy, I had looked upon God
as a logical mind in Whom the least happening in this and
in all other worlds was planned and willed. Gradually I began
to see that much of what takes place is due to chance and
to lawbound nature. I could not make myself believe that God
had deliberately pushed my boy into the cistern." {28}

It is quite likely, however, that Rølvaag’s religious
point of view would have shifted even without the crisis occasioned
by the loss of his son. The shock of World War I, with its
accompanying hysteria and aftermath of cynicism, had been
a severe blow to Rølvaag’s idealistic cultural philosophy.
Furthermore, many elements of the organized church had gone
along very rapidly with the emotional excesses growing out
of the war. {29} [131]

Elements among the Lutherans who wished to "Americanize"
the church had been vociferous in their attacks upon individuals
like Rølvaag who clung to the old language and traditions.
In 1918, at the convention of the Norwegian Lutheran Church
in America, a proposal was made to drop the term "Norwegian"
from its name. For several years the issue was hotly debated
in church periodicals and in the Norwegian-language press,
and Rølvaag staunchly defended the retention of the
word "Norwegian." {30} The proposal to change the
name of the church met defeat at the 1 920 convention, largely
because of the vigorous opposition of the Norwegian secular
and religious press in America. The name of the church remained
unchanged until 1946.

As the opposition to conserving Norwegian cultural life became
more and more vocal, the "anti-cultural" tendencies
inherent in Haugeanism and the Gisle Johnson theology received
fresh impetus from the newer "Americanized" sectors
of the church. The "Harry Hauglands" were beginning
to assert themselves against the ethnocentric aspects of their
religious tradition. Typical of this kind of attack was a
letter signed "S" and published early in 1922 in
Duluth Skandinav. The writer of the letter, presumably a clergyman,
castigated Norwegian-American writers like Rølvaag
for failing to produce a "Christian" literature:
"On the day one of these authors gives us a book which
every pastor would gladly recommend from the pulpit, on that
day they will be read whether they write English or Norwegian.
But when they write the kind of books they have hitherto produced,
books full of sensuality, full of the things of this world,
I for one am happy that there is so much spiritual and cultural
poverty among us that they are not being read." {31}

Rølvaag entered wholeheartedly into the newspaper
feud which followed the letter from "S." He took
care to explain [132] the whole cultural problem and the role
which he felt the clergy should play in alleviating the spiritual
and cultural barrenness in the immigrant settlements. He incorporated
the gist of these arguments into an extended essay, "Enfoldige
betragtninger om 'Vor literatur,'" which he included
as a section of the book Omkring fædrearven in 1922.

Rølvaag continued to be the object of criticism and
abuse from certain members of the clergy. Even before the
publication of the original Norwegian version of Giants in
the Earth, he wrote: "I fear that I cannot in the future
keep the favor of the church and be in harmony with its ministry."
{32} When his famous novel was published, a deluge of unfavorable
reviews descended upon him from some quarters of the church.
A ministerial association in Milwaukee attempted to pass a
resolution of censure against Rølvaag. This was done
largely at the instigation of a pastor who had served as chaplain
in World War I and who was an outspoken advocate of "Amercanizing"
the Norwegian Lutheran Church. But Rølvaag also had
his defenders among the pastors. His correspondence of this
period reveals that he was in personal touch with a large
number of these friends and shared his misgivings with them.
There can be little doubt, however, that the criticism which
he received cooled his ardor for the work of the organized
church. Commenting upon it in an Ibsen lecture entitled "Institutional
Christianity," he suggested that the church was not an
unmixed blessing. Although it supported missions, charities,
and education, it also minimized individual responsibility
in its efforts to build a formal structure — a kind of self-contained
framework in which everyone was supposed to feel and think
alike. {33}

The tendency of organized religion to thwart and distort
individual lives struck Rølvaag very forcibly when
he visited his father in Norway during the summer of 1924:
"Father has gotten old these eight years. He still discusses
occult [133] religious matters as in the days of old. Say
what you will, religion has served to disturb the natural
development of many people." {34}

The shift in Rølvaag’s position in spiritual matters
during the early 1920’s can be summarized as a movement away
from Lutheran dogmatism and orthodoxy toward a more existential
and inward sense of religious experience. He was well acquainted
with the philosophical writings of Søren Kierkegaard,
and the anti-dogmatism and anti-institutionalism which that
Danish author expressed were in harmony with Rølvaag’s
thinking. To some friends he once summarized his religious
attitude in the expression "Be kind to life." {35}

In a lecture "Thoughts of Thinking People," he
drew heavily upon Dean William R. Inge’s criticisms of orthodoxy,
and he proposed that in the future a more liberal interpretation
be made of Christian belief. He criticized the traditional
position for its gross materialism and literalism — "You
feed on, and live in, a child’s picture book." {36} He
suggested to his audience composed almost entirely of conservative
Lutherans that the really effective Christian thinking of
the day was being done by "modernists," and not
by the dogma-bound.

Because of Rølvaag’s persistent identification with
the immigrant community and its concerns, he did not develop
into a critic of American religion as a whole. He seems to
have had very little contact with traditions other than his
own. In the writing of Peder Victorious and Their Fathers’
God, he made a study of Roman Catholicism and tried carefully
to represent its point of view. Father Williams, the priest
in the two novels, is, on the whole, depicted as a cultured
and sympathetic person. But after the publication of Their
Fathers’ God, certain minor errors were noted by careful readers
— the most glaring being the inclusion of Ash Wednesday in
[134] Holy Week! Rølvaag was unsure of himself when
he stepped out of his own background and tradition; therefore
he was reluctant to pose as a critic of religion in its larger
significance in American culture.

In his mature novels, he devoted a great deal of time to
the discussion of spiritual problems. Beret, with her dark,
brooding religion, has been labeled by Vernon L. Parrington
as a "primitive Norse Calvinist," and it is her
spirit that dominates the first book of Rølvaag’s trilogy
of pioneer life. {37} But her extremism was clearly a part
of her illness as she struggled against insanity on the lonely
prairie. Her religion offers little in the way of comment
upon the social scene, for it was concerned almost entirely
with the state of an abnormal mind.

In Peder Victorious and Their Fathers’ God, the second and
third books in the trilogy, Rølvaag examined the role
of religion in relation to the second generation. By marrying
an Irish Catholic girl, Peder had violated the ethnoreligious
solidarity which the author insisted was so necessary for
cultural and individual fulfillment. The novels should not
be interpreted as anti-Catholic, nor was he interested in
making any kind of theological judgment. To be sure, Susie’s
Catholicism was full of superstition, especially as we see
it through her husband’s eyes. Peder’s religion contains strong
rationalistic elements — as evidenced by his interest in Thomas
Paine and Robert Ingersoll. But he also displayed residual
elements of basic Protestantism: by his Bible-reading and
by his insistence upon stripping religion of its priestly
elements. Perhaps [135] Rølvaag intended to convey
to his readers that, if the ethnocultural elements were removed
from religion (as some of his clerical opponents seemed bent
upon doing), what survived would be defenseless against the
attacks of the rationalists. Thus at best it could serve only
a negative role in people’s lives, instead of being the basis
for significant personal orientation and group solidarity.

Rølvaag’s criticism of organized religion in his fiction
is nowhere more pointed than in his portraiture of the clergyman.
There are, however, several sympathetic characterizations.
The old pioneer minister in Giants in the Earth, who has great
sympathy for the immigrants, is able to bring consolation
and strength to them in their hardships. Pastor Kaldahl in
Their Fathers’ God (a rather obvious portrayal of J. N. Kildahl,
the author’s friend and spiritual guide) insists that the
cultural heritage of the Norwegians must be conserved. In
spite of the fact that Peder openly and vigorously disagrees
with Kaldahl on some matters, he also admires the minister’s
integrity and strength of character.

Rølvaag’s satiric scorn is poured out upon several
men of the cloth. In Pure Gold, the fear-crazed Louis is driven
— by his notions of the coming of the end of the world and
by his own sense of guilt in withholding money from his wife
— to seek out the pastor of his old congregation. In a state
of deep but confused need, he meets, however, a matter-of-fact
response from the new minister. The author uses only a few
master strokes to delineate the shortcomings of this so-called
man of God. When the subject of a Norwegian newspaper is mentioned,
the clergyman replies curtly that he does not subsidize the
foreign-language press. Clearly this religious leader was
one of the postwar breed who prided themselves upon breaking
with old traditions and upon "Americanizing" the
immigrant church.

A more thorough study of the clerical personality is given
in the portrayal of Pastor Gabrielsen in Peder Victorious.
This minister wanted to be known as a progressive — even as
[136] a liberal-minded person. As young Peder shows more than
average skepticism in the course of his training for confirmation,
Gabrielsen interprets the boy’s independence as a sign that
he has a mind suited to theological speculation. He tries
to explain to Peder some of the more obvious anthropomorphisms
of the Bible. But the more Gabrielsen tries to accommodate
his interpretations to his pupil, the more he succeeds in
making himself appear ridiculous and in alienating himself
from his protégé. By pressing Peder’s supposed
call to the ministry, he actually drives the youngster away.

It is also Gabrielsen who incurs Beret’s anger when he announces
that in twenty years not one word of Norwegian will be heard
in America. Anxious to identify himself with those who favor
a rapid Americanization, he introduces English into the young
people’s meetings. Ironically, his early success with a youth
program turns to bitterness. The younger pastor of a rival
congregation is able to attract Gabrielsen’s youthful group
into his church. Seeing the whole matter through the eyes
of Peder, the reader is left with the impression that the
ministers are engaged in an expenditure of meaningless effort.
It is not surprising that Peder turns away from the church
and in the direction of politics as a means of self-fulfillment.

Rølvaag’s social criticism tends to be conservative,
even reactionary, his primary concern being for the ethnocultural
solidarity of the immigrants. It was difficult for Rølvaag
to disassociate himself from the accepted norms and attitudes
of these fellow countrymen. It was only after he had experienced
the bitterness of alienation that he spoke out on social issues,
with some candor and detachment. Furthermore, because of his
isolation from the mainstream of American affairs, he was
reluctant to step forward as a social critic of the larger
aspects of life in the New World. Instead, he preferred to
address his judgments exclusively to the immigrant community
to which he belonged.

Notes

<1> Francis J. Grund, The Americans in Their Moral,
Social, and Political Relations, 169 (Boston, 1837).

<19> Nelson and Fevold, The Lutheran Church Among Norwegian-Americans,
2: 42—43. For a more thorough discussion of the beginnings
of higher education among Norwegians in America, see Karen
Larsen, Laur. Larsen: Pioneer College President (Northfield,
Minnesota, 1936). Laur. Larsen was the first president of
Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. The exclusively pre-theological
nature of education at Luther College can be seen from the
early graduation certificates which contained the words: "Dismissed
to the theological seminary."

<25> Nelson and Fevold, The Lutheran Church Among Norwegian-Americans,
1: 253—270. The term "Missourian" has reference
to the so-called Missouri Synod, a conservative German Lutheran
body with headquarters in St. Louis.

<29> In 1927, Rølvaag translated Kirken, a Norwegian
play by Nini Roll Anker; his English title was The Wrath of
God. The drama is a biting satire on Christian organizations
for their equivocal stand during World War I. Rølvaag
felt that this play expressed his own attitude on the subject.

<37> Vernon Louis Parrington, Main Currents in American
Thought: An Interpretation of American Literature from the
Beginnings to 1920, 3:395 (New York, 1930). Parrington has
not misnamed Beret’s religion in spite of the fact that she
was obviously a Lutheran. He suggests that the primitive Northland
superstitions of the Norns provide the note of determinism.
The puritan spirit was much in evidence among Norwegian Lutherans,
especially the pietistic, low-church elements. Theodore C.
Blegen contends that this puritanism came directly from Norway
and was independent of American influence; see his Norwegian
Migration to America: The American Transition, 222 (Northfield,
Minnesota, 1940). For a somewhat different interpretation
of the relation of puritanism and immigrant religion, see
Marcus L. Hansen, "Immigration and Puritanism,"
in Norwegian-American Studies and Records, 9: 1—28 (1936).